Stephens' Bucket at the Buzzer Beats Akron in Hawaii

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Myles Stephens' layup at the buzzer gave the Princeton men's basketball team a 64-62 win over Akron Saturday afternoon in a consolation game at the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu.

The Tigers will face Hawai'i at 9:30 a.m. local/2:30 p.m. Eastern Monday in the team's final game of the tournament. ESPNU will have the TV broadcast, and the Princeton radio broadcast will be on the Ivy League Network but not on WPRB or TuneIn due to holiday programming.

Princeton took a 62-59 lead on a Sebastian Much 3 with 58 seconds to go and looked to have the game in hand after a successful defensive stand at the other end. The ball was with Princeton with less than a second's difference between the shot clock and the game clock, but a missed front end of a 1-and-1 gave Akron the chance to tie. Malcolm Duvivier did just that, nailing a 3-pointer with eight seconds to go to knot it at 62-62.

A Tiger timeout gave Princeton the ball at mid-court with five seconds left, and Much took the inbound pass and flew along the endline, finding Stephens with a dish under the basket. Stephens recovered from an initial fumble to bank it off the glass as the final tenths of the final second ticked away.

"I saw (Sebastian) going baseline, so I cut middle and I fumbled the pass, but I was able to get it up over my left shoulder and it banked right in, so it was a nice ending," Stephens said.

Much's 12 points gave him a double-digit total for the fourth straight game after scoring in double figures twice in the first nine games.

"The more time I spend with these guys, the more comfortable I get," Much said. "Every game gets better and better."

Amir Bell led Princeton with 16 points, his third-highest total of the season and third straight double-figure scoring game for a season-best streak of those. Stephens added 15 points to get back into double figures before scoring nine last time out against Middle Tennessee following a seven-game double-figure scoring run.

Postgame Notes

• Sophomore Richmond Aririguzoh had a career-high four blocked shots and a season-high five rebounds.

• Freshman Ryan Schwieger tied his career best with eight points in a career-high 29 minutes.

• Princeton and Akron have now split their two all-time meetings. The Zips won the previous meeting in Akron in 2012.

Derek Jones' call of the Stephens basket on WPRB 103.3 FM and Princeton's TuneIn channel:

Here's the Myles Stephens bucket to give the Tigers the 64-62 win over Akron! pic.twitter.com/aKSJrN4aCm
— Princeton Basketball (@Princeton_Hoops) December 24, 2017

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